What do you do when you want do all these things and be good at them?
I’ve recently become stuck. Spending a quiet afternoon at work watching a few beautiful animated short stories and finding inspiration, I’ve increasingly found the urge to snatch back some creative integrity. I want to produce something bigger than anything I have previously done. These things take time and ability, hopefully I can find enough of both. You see winding up in a commercial work stream is a profitable, albeit a dulling one. Not particularly for myself mind, just most of the people I work for.
Not that I dislike my job. It’s mostly brilliant and I feel very fortunate to have fallen into the position I have. From being taken the piss out of for doing a media A level in sixth form and also getting the piss taken for running my own Youtube channel all those years ago, it’s now quite gratifying to be doing the same things I’ve always been doing since then. A bit of uni in between and a short stint in catering and here we are. Will Lennard, motion designer. I want to keep getting better at my job, taking more responsibility and doing better work. Learning to work with people in better ways.
These are just more things to add to the big list of things I want to do with myself.
I want to write things that don’t make other people cringe. Or myself for that matter. I’m writing now and cringing and then doing some more. I might be really good at it one day, who knows? In the past year I’ve learnt how to read books again, a fair few of them as well. Which sounds silly, but there aren’t a many of us on the train reading, commuting but still attempting to think about something. Yuck, that sounded… cringey. Still, I’ve not put anything out in a few months so typing this feels like a step in the right direction.
I’ll have a go on the piano when I get home. It’s another object which has sparked my interest in recent months, starting lessons and working through some basic songs. Music in general really is fascinating, seeing more live music, finding new artists and so on. I was pretty good at the drums when I was younger and then gave my kit away. Not a great idea in hindsight but I doubt I’ll forget how to play. Let’s hope it’s like riding a bike. I’d love to eventually make some music of my own {stick it on the list} maybe I’ll learn the guitar or how to sing or both? Maybe I’ll make a sweet animated video and do the music for it and everything, wouldn’t that be nice.
I want to travel more, well who doesn’t? That or work in a different country for a while, you need to do these things while you’re young I think. When there aren’t too many strings to attach you to one place.
This is starting to sound like a terribly cliche Tinder bio: I like music, travelling and being happy. Will, 23.
Another area of interest is my health and fitness. In 2019 I’ll carry on waking up early and going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week. Okay, 4 times you lazy bastard. At 23 I feel as though I should be heading towards my peak, in terms of physical fitness. Who wouldn’t want to be super fast and strong? Motivation is important but discipline is the key. Also less Chicken Katsu curries.
I will do more cooking, now I’ve finally moved out my parents I can cook whatever I want and control my diet the way I want to. Which will be good for losing that post Christmas fluff.
For my cardio I’ll carry on playing football casually – I think after 17 years playing, I can safely say I’ll never turn out for Leeds United. Still good all the same – there was a point where I fell out of love with the game and stopped playing, watching and supporting completely after burning myself out in my teenage years. My Dad was coaching, so there really was no way I was getting out that easily. No surprise my desire to play fell off really, success in amateur junior football is as much about who hit puberty first as it is technical skill. Not that I had either of those things going for me. The term ‘late bloomer’ springs to mind. Oh yeah, and after the age of about 14, all those Sunday hangovers didn’t help.
Cricket was the sport I was always best at, 2018 was a good summer for me. A bit of a breakout season after spending previous university summers in a space of cricketing limbo. 2019 should be even better. People tell me cricket is a boring sport, so I’ll leave it short. I disagree completely of course. Who wouldn’t want to play a sport where stop for a meal in the middle of a game?
I guess this is a list of things I want to do and keep doing in the coming year. I don’t really believe in resolutions. If you want to do it, just do it. That’ll be 20 quid, cheers Nike. The big question is how do you do all these things while keeping a full time job, maintain relationships and still be able to take time to relax?
None of these things are particularly ground breaking, I don’t want to do Rocket science, cure cancer or learn how to talk to women. I just want to do things and be good at doing them.
Writing them down, I believe is a good place to start.
